


A Broken One

by Serendipity_Zemblanity



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Abuse, Animalistic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Neglect, Pony Play, Pony!play, Rehabilitation, Training, adopting an abused pet, human pony, humans as pets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-19 04:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13115784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serendipity_Zemblanity/pseuds/Serendipity_Zemblanity
Summary: Edward Masen, owner of a rehabilitation stable for abused and neglected pony boys, has been asked to take on yet another pony boy, Alec, for rehabilitation. his pony has been sent through several trainers in attempts to 'fix' his problems. Alec has no intentions of allowing another human to abuse him. His only thoughts are to get free. Will Alec be able to be helped and get along with Edward's small herd?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a totally different AU, if this doesn't tickle your fancy then don't read it! This is loosely based off of the characters of Twilight. I don't own anything related to Twilight - all rights go to Stephanie Meyer. This is my first time writing a story such as this.
> 
> In this story, ponies are humans that are trained and bred to act as a normal pony would. They aren't altered in any way, but these ponies cannot speak. On some occasions they can understand spoken language. You are either a pony or a human, there is nothing weird about this. It is all normal. Ponies are aged differently from humans. A one year old pony is the equivalent to a twelve year old human. A two year old pony is the equivalent to a thirteen year old human, and so on.

Edward Masen looked out over his property from his back deck, breathing in the crisp morning air. He loved waking up to this view every morning. From where he was standing, he could see the front of his barn, the small pastures and the two round pens in front of the barn. This was his life-long dream, owning a small training facility for pony boys. Specifically, abused pony boys who needed help trusting again. Of course he didn't work alone. Edward had a trusted friend, Jasper Hale assist him in the training of ponies. Together they rescued and rehabilitated ponies that truly needed help.

Currently Edward had six ponies on property, all with varying personalities, ages and histories. Today his plans included working with Seth, their newest and most unruly pony, and exercising Finn. Seth had been taken from his past owners because of abuse and neglect. Even after two months of being at the farm, Seth still was struggling. He had virtually no manners nor respect for Jasper or Edward, but they were working on it. It didn't look as if Seth had made progress, but he had and Edward was proud of him for that. Heading back inside the house, he grabbed an apple off of his kitchen counter to take out for the ponies to split in their breakfast meals. Each day followed a similar schedule, which consisted of breakfast at seven in the morning, turnout and working some of the ponies in the later morning, a light lunch about one in the afternoon followed by turnout again until five in the evening, when the ponies were pulled up back into their stalls for the night. All of this was subject to change, but Edward liked to keep it as familiar as possible. A schedule is one of the best things for his ponies, considering their pasts of constant uncertainty.

His shoes crunched on the gravel as he made it out to the barn, going at a brisk pace. It was the middle of September, and the air definitely felt like it. Edward made a quick mental note to start getting his ponies used to wearing blanket again as he entered the barn and flipped on the lights.

"Morning boys!" He called out as he opened the back, large barn doors to let in a bit more light. This also helped the ponies feel less claustrophobic. A chorus of whinnies followed his greeting as Edward checked on each pony quickly before preparing their breakfast. It was simple enough - rice with scrambled eggs, some mixed in bits pork and random dried fruit. Not only did they get this, but also some supplements depending on what they needed extra in their system. Each pony had their own color coded bucket with their name on it. This made everything easier on Edward and Jasper when it came to feeding time. They had found it easier to medicate them through feeding than needles. Many of his ponies had fears of needles, and if the unnecessary stress wasn't needed, he was not going to make a fuss about it.

"Here, Jacob." Jacob eyed Edward carefully from a corner of his stall as Edward opened the small feeding door on his stall. This small door allowed handlers to easily feed ponies without having to go all the way into their stall. Jacob was brought to the farm roughly six months ago, after having been rescued from a serious neglect case. He came to the farm literally skin hanging off of bones. Now, he looked nearly the ideal weight for his age. Sadly as a result of this serious neglect, Jacob continues to be very food aggressive. Constantly on alert when food is present, ready to fight to the death to make sure he gets to eat. Knowing of this, Edward closes back the door and leaves Jacob to eat in peace. Next was Sawyer, then Benji - short for Benjamin. Followed by Finn, Milo and Seth.

Edward gave the ponies plenty of time to eat while he began preparing for his morning session with Seth. Today's plans consisted of saddle training. He hummed an indistinct tune as he took Seth's halter off of the hook and headed towards his stall. Edward clicked a couple times to alert Seth of his presence, trying not to startle him.

"Come on, Seth. Hop up. We are going to work today." He said, as he looked down at Seth. He had already laid down in his bed of shavings at the floor of his stall once he had finished his morning meal. Nonetheless, Edward went in and waited at the door as Seth hauled himself up. Brushing a couple of remaining shavings off of Seth, Edward slipped on his simple training bridle over top of his rope halter onto his head. Each pony kept on a light rope halter at all times in case of emergencies. Edward lead Seth out into the hallway of the barn, jerking the rope as a reminder as Seth started to paw and dance around.

"Stop it." Edward ordered, snapping the rope down again. This time Seth walked obediently as Edward lead him to the front doors. He slid one of them just open enough for him and the pony to go through. They walked a short way to round pen on the left side of the barn, where Edward had earlier set all of the day he would use on Seth today. The crisp morning air was still lingering as the sun slowly came up over the trees. Soon Jasper would arrive at the farm to begin exercising and training alongside Edward. He opened the swinging gate to the round pen and took the unruly pony through, tying him loosely to the fence. Edward quickly went back and locked the gate before returning to Seth, trying to give him a minimal amount of time to escape. Pawing in frustration and boredom, Seth began dancing on the lead as he had been in the barn.

"What did I say earlier? Stop it." Edward calmly, snapping the lead down sharply. Getting frustrated right back at the ponies didn't help matters at all.

Seth's case wasn't horrible like some that Edward had seen, but it was different. When abused, most ponies will become fearful with an overwhelming flight response. Instead, with Seth's case, he would fight and be as rude as he could, trying to make you hate him and/or become frustrated. That didn't work here. Slowly he was learning that, but there were still minor relapses in his progress. Today Edward was attempting to start him in saddle training. This is what they were to focus on today.

**0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0**

"Steady, it's alright." Edward said, holding the lead rope under his head as he was slowly throwing a light training saddle overtop of Seth's back and shoulders. Seth stood stock-still, nostrils flaring slightly. His body language was a small, minute cue to Edward that he would explode if given the chance. His old owners had missed this, and that was the start to all of Seth's problems. Of course Seth used to only freak over larger actions, but it was now second nature to Seth. Even the smallest of issues would set him off.

"Hey, Edward." Jasper's voice came out of nowhere and immediately Seth shot off at the unexpected sound of Jasper's voice. As he was whipped around by hitting the end of his lead rope, the saddle coming flying off his back. Again, fear set in again and Seth just backed up until he was straining on the leadrope. The saddle lay forgotten on the ground as Edward slowly tried to approach Seth again, to calm him. Edward sighed, they had been doing so good.

"My apologies, I didn't expect him to react so severely to the sound of my voice." Jasper said, standing still, still slightly shocked at the way Seth had freaked out.

"It's alright, he was just a little on edge." Edward replied, trying to brush Seth's side in a comforting motion, but Seth jerked backwards in and attempt to get away. Sighing again, Edward dropped his hand and bent over to pick the fallen saddle up. Since the first saddling had not gone as planned, he decided to go back to the basics that Seth knew.

"Well, I am just going to go work Benji." Nodding in acknowledgement, Edward threw the saddle up onto the top fence rail as Jasper walked into the barn. He picked up a lunging whip that had laid, forgotten against the fence, and went to the middle of the round pen. Seth knew what to do now, and was good with this. New changes were scary, but Seth could deal with things he knew how to do - such as lunging. Edward clicking once, the signal for walking. Almost without thinking, Seth began walking in a small circle around his trainer. As Seth slowly circled, Edward could see the nervousness dissipating. Despite his recent scare, Seth's body language was calming down. Good enough for today.

**0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0**

The sharp vibrating of his phone snapped Edward out of his sleepy state. After a full morning of training, he had been relaxing on his porch, much like this morning. He contemplated not answering it, was it really worth his time? But who knew who was calling, so he answered.

"Hello?"

"Good afternoon, Edward."

"Good afternoon. Who is speaking?" Edward had no clue who this person was, or why they were calling.

"Oh, Edward!" The person speaking began giggling. "Don't you remember? This is Renee! You gave me your number when we met last month."

Inwardly groaning, Edward remembered who she was. A fake, lying and sneaky woman, as he had found out after meeting her. She had a farm similar to his, but for mares. They had met last month at a small clinic for training and rehabilitation for abused ponies. Renee was known for stealing money and abusing - quite the opposite of what she advertised for herself. "Of course I remember, I just didn't get a chance to save your number in my contacts." Lie. Lie. Lie. Maybe she will hang up?

"Oops! I forgive you." She paused and gained some composure. "As you know I have a small farm much like yours that works with mares. So, anyway, I was approached by someone that needed a home for a stallion. They had rescued him without knowing what they were getting themselves into, and really need some help rehoming him. The pony is super sweet, such a darling."

"Why did you call, Renee?" Edward was getting more impatient by the second. He didn't want to be doing any business with her.

"Well, since you don't want to beat around the bush - I need to ask you a favor." Before Edward had any chance to butt in, she quickly continued. "This pony is cute and all, but he's a stallion. You know I don't work with stallions, and he is getting a bit too frisky with my girls... Some are scared of him and the others? Let's just say I don't want any foals popping up. He just needs somewhere to go until he can be adopted out."

Edward rolled his eyes, but remained professional as possible. "So, you want me to take this stallion on?"

"Oh, would you do that for me?!" Renee sounded like he had just offered to buy her an expensive diamond necklace. "I will have my guys delivered tomorrow morning, probably around seven. Would that be alright? He just has his halter a lead, nothing els- wait no, make that six in the morning. I have a breakfast to attend at eight, and need time to get ready. Is that okay?" Taking a a deep breath of air, loud enough for Edward to hear on the phone, she finally stopped talking. In all of that, she hardly stopped to take a breath.

"Yes, that works." Edward had no clue what he was getting himself into.

"Alright, thanks!" She cut the line off before there was any more room for discussion. He looked down at his phone flashing 'call canceled' - sighing in relief. Those short minutes seemed like forever, and he was glad for it to be over. He didn't know how she got his number, because he certainly didn't give her any number, especially his personal number. Stretching, Edward took one more look out across his pastures before heading inside his humble home. After a short nap, he would call Jasper and begin to prepare the barn for a new pony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Soo, yah. I wrote this a couple months ago for FanFiction.net, hence the fandom, and started on a second chapter, but never finished it. If this stories sparks interest, I'll continue it. Otherwise it is staying as is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N : I don’t plan to update this story much. It takes a long time for me to write each chapter for a couple reasons. One, I try to make them over two thousand words. Two, I don’t have a lot of motivation to write this story currently and lastly, I’m really trying to be descriptive and write this story well! I hope to update this story once a week.

A blaring alarm sounded off at five in the morning, an hour before Edward's usual alarm. He lay there, exhausted. The alarm still sounded off in the background. For some reason, it seemed to be earlier than six. Lazily, Edward hauled himself up to turn off the alarm. His already bad mood turned even more sour as he glanced at the clock on his bedside table. Had set his alarm incorrectly last night? Realization set in and he bolted out of bed quickly, jumping in the shower. The new pony was being delivered today.

As he stood in the shower washing his hair, Edward went through a mental checklist of everything that he and Jasper had done last night. First they had prepped his stall. It would be one at the end of the barn with direct access to a small turnout pasture. From there, the new pony could see, but not be close to the other ponies. For at least a week the new one would be in quarantine. Just to be sure.

After they had prepped his stall, they went out and bought a new halter for him. Each pony had their own color tack. This helped everyone majorly, because some ponies needed special equipment. Jasper and Edward decided to go with simple black, since they weren't sure if how long this new pony would be staying at their farm.

"Edward Masen! Open this door right now!" There was loud banging, jerking Edward out of his thoughts.

"Hold on, I'm almost done." The annoying knocking continued as Edward shut off the shower and jumped out quickly. He knew who it was - Jasper. He was only doing this to annoy Edward. "You can stop now!" Edward snapped, opening the door. Jasper stood there, grinning as if he had done nothing wrong. The bad mood that Edward had been in earlier had dissipated in the shower, but it was about to come back.

"Do you mind?" Edward asked, impatiently as he glanced over to the clock on his bedside. It was 5:30, only half an hour before the trailer arrived.

"Sorry, don't know what crawled up your ass." Jasper backed out of the room with his hand up, as if he was caught by the police, closing the door behind him. Edward rolled his eyes. He knew he was being rude, but he hadn't had his coffee yet.

Luckily when Edward came out of his bedroom fully dressed, he found Jasper sitting at his breakfast table with a coffee mug of his own, and one for Edward at the other side of the table. Grateful, Edward took the mug and they sat in silence sipping their coffee slowly. When Edward drained his cup, he stood up and began making himself breakfast. Jasper followed him, preparing his own. They worked without speaking. It wasn't a rude gesture, or a result of Edward's less than bright attitude this morning, it was simply how they had always done breakfast.

"Okay, I'll go out to the barn and get everyone situated for the morning and you can stay up here at the house and help direct the trailer when it comes. That sound alright to you?" Edward nodded in response, and Jasper laced up his boots to head out to the barn.

**0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0**

Edward wasn't left waiting. At precisely six o'clock, a truck and trailer pulled into his driveway. He wasn't surprised when he saw it was a very expensive looking truck and trailer. For Renee, it was all about presentation. How it looked and brand names were valued over everything else. The driver slowed down when he reached Edward, who was standing on the side of the driveway.

"Where do you want me to pull to?" The driver asked, tapping the steering wheel absentmindedly.

"Up to the barn, where that man is standing. You can easily make a loop around to leave." The man in the truck nodded and began heading out. Edward followed, trying to get a look at the pony. But he saw nothing. Renee had not given him anything on the pony other than 'cute and super sweet, such a darling'.

Jasper began unlatching the trailer doors as the driver opened his door and jumped out.

"That one is a terror. I'm glad I got there early to load him up, because I needed it. The boy's a tough fighter and was not about to get on that trailer."

"Oh really? I was told he was sweet." Edward asked, as the ramp was let down.

"Well, you were lied to. The boy's high strung and flighty, but when he can't run he fights. And fights hard." The driver shook his head and went back to the front of the truck. Now Edward and Jasper could get a good look at the boy. To Edward, he looked young. Roughly three to five years old, but his breeding paper's would tell him for sure. The boy was standing stiff but still, blindfolded. Not that he could see anyway, he had long and shaggy black hair that was long enough to cover his eyes.

The man returned, and gave Edward his breeding papers. "Here you go, all of his paperwork. You just need to sign where it says 'buyer name' and 'buyer signature'." Once Edward had signed everything, he was officially in ownership of this pony and could handle him. Liability and all. He entered the trailer cautiously. Jasper was on the outside of the trailer, waiting if Edward needed help.

The pony knew there was someone in the trailer with him. He just wanted to know when all of this would stop. Every day it was something or someone new, another thing to have to protect himself against. He was tired of defending himself, but wasn't about to give in to these people. As soon as he felt the pressure from the lead rope tied to the trailer release, the pony flew backwards into the other side of the trailer. He couldn't see anything so he turned and kept backing up until he hit the end of the lead rope. When that happened, he started yanking his head back. An attempt to relieve the pressure. Sure, it hurt like hell, but he could deal with pain.

"Easy. Woah." Edward spoke to the pony, trying to calm him. This voice was unknown to the pony so he paid no attention to it and resumed his pulling and yanking. He stumbled backwards and almost fell on his rear when he lost footing due to the drop off the back of the trailer. The pony was sure that he had permanent bruising on his shins from that drop. The stupid man that had put him on this trailer had blindfolded him so he couldn't see anything. That meant he couldn't see or understand that he needed to step up. Not that he was going to go in anyway, but he lost count of how many times he had run into that ledge. Silently, he vowed to himself he would never step foot into one of those ever again.

"Okay. You're alright." Jasper tried reassuring him as the pony danced around.  
"Well, thank you for bringing him out here safely." Edward turned to the man, handing him a check. The man nodded and began closing all of the doors on the trailer. Once the truck and trailer had safely pulled out, Jasper went over behind the pony while Edward firmly held the lead rope below his head.

There was a light tugging from behind his head as Jasper released the blindfold. The pony blinked rapidly, trying to get his eyes used to the sunlight from the early morning. He looked at the two people standing there, then his surroundings trying to understand where he was. There was one man standing awfully close to him, with messy red hair. The pony narrowed his eyes when the stranger lifted his hand. Did that man really want to test him? Apparently so, because the man moved his arm to touch the pony.

Without thinking, Edward attempted to touch the young male. Big mistake. This was a threat, and as soon as his hand got close the pony freaked. A sharp squeal came from him as he spun around to start kicking at the stranger. Taken completely off guard, Edward began shouting for the pony to calm and stop, backing out of the way until he stopped trying to kick at him. They all stood there, each one with different thoughts flying through their minds.

Jasper was the first to move, taking the pedigree and papers for the pony from Edward. He opened them and began skimming them as he walked into the barn. His main goal was to first, find the pony's name. For now, he was just 'pony'. And second, he wanted to see if there were any records that would give clues as to why the pony was reacting as he did. Also, by now, the ruckus had alerted all of the ponies inside the barn, and they were curious to see what was going on. Jasper wanted to calm everyone down before Edward came in here with the pony. Having these guys all riled up and trying to break free would not make this any better.

“Ponies, ponies. Calm down. It’s alright, nothing too exciting.” Jasper softly called out, walking around the inside perimeter of the barn to check on all of the ponies. Some of them were up, begging for attention. Others were straining to see what the ruckus was. Even Seth, the newest pony was looking out of the top of his stall. He was very untrusting and would rather curl up in the corner of his stall when a lot was going on.

The pony’s chest was fluttering in and out quickly as he stood there, watching. His mind was still reeling and his eyes were still adjusting to this bright light. For so long he had been kept in the dark or dim light. The feeling of the sun on his skin was magical, something he had taken for granted. For several moments the pony stood there, soaking in the sun. It really was unfortunate that Edward wanted to get him inside, into his stall.

Edward watched his new pony closely. From his experience with ponies, he had learned many tell-tale cues from their body language; such as when they would explode, when they were trying to shut down, or if they were just in the moment, oblivious to the world around them. Currently, this pony seemed to be just enjoying the sun. His eyes were almost closed and his muscles weren’t so bunched up. This bliss was short lived, because Jasper came back out of the barn.

The sound of crunching of boots on gravel alerted the pony of the man coming back. He jerked his head up, and started backing away from the man with red hair who was holding his lead rope. Similar to what he had done the trailer, the pony started pulling and yanking.

“Easy boy, easy. Jasper won’t hurt you.” Edward said softly, trying to soothe the panicking pony. Instead of walking backwards towards the pony, Edward help the rope firm until the pony stopped trying to escape. His backwards dash ended as quickly as it started.

“Come on.” Edward pulled lightly on the lead rope, stepping towards the barn. During the pony’s little episode, Jasper had disappeared from the doorway of the barn. Probably for the best.

The pony stood firmly, stretching only his head and neck forward when the man pulled his rope. No thanks. He liked it out here in the sun. This man seemed to think very highly of himself, much like Alec’s past handlers. Thought they could fix him and force him to listen. A pony could never truly be broken.

With that, the pony started fighting the pressure. He jumped up in the air, and threw his head upwards, trying to gain any sort of leverage against the lead rope. Edward had to admit that this pony, despite his looks, was very strong. The man wasn’t lying when he said that this pony was a fighter. Even in the morning air it was hot, and while he was holding onto this pony Edward was beginning to sweat. The sun was out fully now and beating down harshly onto the land.

**0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0**

Now both Edward and this pony were standing underneath the hot sun, a thin line of sweat forming above each one’s brow. For the past ten minutes they had been playing a game of back and forth with each other. The pony would yield forward a couple steps, following the pressure on his rope. Then, he would dart backwards and twist around. Edward would walk a couple steps forward to keep the pony from extreme stress on his neck. They were so close though, just a couple more steps and they would be in the cool barn. Neither man nor pony looked as if they wanted to give in though, so they stood; staring at each other. One man with a kind look and one with a look filled with hatred.

“Don’t you want to be cool in the nice barn?” Edward asked, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

Really, the pony did. The sweet bliss of the sun on his back was short, and it felt like a fiery poker on his body. But he couldn’t let this man know that. Everything he liked was taken from him. He did not want to spend the rest of his days out in this sun. Maybe a stall wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Edward tugged at the lead rope again and this time the pony walked forward with him. Finally. He wasn’t angry or frustrated with the pony. He was angry at Renee. She had known this whole time that he was a mess, and that’s why she had called Edward specifically. Edward dealt and rehabilitated broken pony boys, but he was full now and hadn’t wanted to take on yet another pony. It was too late now.

After scaring the pony, Jasper retreated back into the tack room to look over his file. Jasper opened the manilla folder to find only one white sheet of paper. At the top of the page, in a bright bold red color was the word ‘DANGEROUS’ stamped on. Ignoring it, Jasper glanced downward. The file very vague and not well put together. Many of the questions were left blank, and they were all jumbled together. So much for his ‘breeding papers’. There was no mention of any breeding or training stable anywhere on the page.

At least they had his date of birth and name, it was better than nothing. After looking through the paper for any more clues about Alec, Jasper went back out into the barn. Edward had managed to get Alec into the back of the barn, past the ponies. While they were sweet, they could be little devils at times. The excitement of a new pony on property had them all twisting and circling in their stalls.

The pony, now known as Alec, was standing right outside of the stall that Edward apparently wanted him in. The stall looked nice, and the man hadn’t laid a hand on Alec yet, but his fears and past experiences prevented him from following him any further. Surely this was good enough. He had followed this strange man into a new place without too much trouble. Obviously not as the man kept pulling on his head.

Edward was very pleased with this pony. All of a sudden his attitude had changed. The pony had followed Edward into the barn, all the way to his new stall without many problems. A couple times he had stopped, nostrils slightly flaring as he watched the other ponies knock around in their stalls, but he didn’t yank backwards. Now they were having another small stare down, but instead of hatred the pony’s eyes were filled with fear. It was sickening what people would do to these ponies and Edward was sure that this pony knew all about it.

“It’s alright. Once we get you settled in, I’ll leave you around.” Edward tried to reason verbally with the pony, but he knew it would do nothing. This pony had no reason to trust him. It took many more minutes of back and forward steps, but finally the pony darted into the stall.

“Good boy!” The pony turned his head towards the man, and then cocked it to the side. What had he done that was so great? It had been forever since anyone had praised Alec. Edward snapped a short lead onto a ring on the lead rope that was attached to Alec’s halter bridle. This would make it much easier to catch the pony tomorrow, without so much stress.

“Alright. See you tomorrow.” Edward said to the pony as he checked the rope to make sure it was secure. As he locked the stall, Edward made a mental note to call the vet and farrier when he got back into his house. The pony desperately needed to be looked over, as quick as possible. Now to find wherever Jasper had run off to with his file.


End file.
